


Artificial Intelligence (a Calculating Mind)

by uena



Series: The Road to Hell (is Paved With Good Intentions) [17]
Category: The Tomorrow People (2013)
Genre: Dirty Bad Wrong, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uena/pseuds/uena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jedikiah isn't good with computers; that doesn't mean he doesn't know which buttons to push, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial Intelligence (a Calculating Mind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hope_calaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_calaris/gifts).



“I’m going to shoot you. Do you hear me? _Shoot you_. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve had it up to here with your insubordination and frankly appalling lack of capability. I’m sorry – but you have to go.”

John freezes in the door to the living room, and stares at the scene before him with wide eyes. “Do you, uh, need a moment?”

Jedikiah’s sitting on the sofa wearing jeans and a ratty old t-shirt, and on the table in front of him is … a computer. Jedikiah seems to have some sort of showdown with it. He stops to glare at the device in favour of turning towards John, though.

“What I need,” he says pointedly, “is a hammer.”

John smiles and enters the living room, walks towards Jedikiah and sits down next to him. “You’re usually more patient.”

“No. I’m not. I expect everyone and everything to perform to the best of their ability, and when they don’t, I replace them with someone or something _better_.”

John smirks to himself and studies the computer’s display. “Sure you do.”

“John, don’t test me. I have no patience left right now.”

John just smiles, leans forward and pushes at the computer’s buttons until the display changes and shows a different page altogether. “Is this where you wanted to go?”

Jedikiah blinks at the screen, then at John. “How?”

“With patience,” John tells him, impish and serious at once. “Plus, I know how the new system works.”

“I suffered through several hours of someone trying to explain it to me in great detail, and I don’t know how the system works.” Jedikiah casts a suspicious look in John’s direction. “You, on the other hand, shouldn’t know _anything_ about it. Explain, please.”

John shrugs his shoulders. “I just picked it up.”

“Picked what up, and where?” Jedikiah asks, sounding slightly bewildered. “The system is only accessed by the senior staff. You shouldn’t even know it exists!”

Again, John shrugs his shoulders. “People at headquarters aren’t as careful as they should be, apparently. I got a few good looks. And it’s not as if _you’re_ locking yourself in a windowless room when you’re working on your computer.”

Jedikiah pulls up his left leg onto the sofa and turns fully towards John. “I’m not saying the program is a secret, I’m saying it’s new and obscure, and needs people of not only superior but otherworldly intelligence to handle it.”

John is torn between blushing and admitting a weird feeling of pride to expand in his chest. He clears his throat. “Do you … do you maybe want me to …”

“Yes!” Jedikiah says, immediately. “Yes, God, please – help me!”

So John pulls the computer off the table and onto Jedikiah’s lap. “Okay,” he says, while shimmying as close to Jedikiah as possible. “But don’t forget, I’m no expert.”

“The expert only managed to confuse me. I’m taking your guidance over hers any day of the week. I’m entirely in your capable hands, John. Enlighten me.”

It takes a few wrong turns, much explaining and lots of key-smashing, but in the end, Jedikiah gets it. More or less.

“I don’t like computers,” he says with feeling while putting the laptop away and out of sight. “They never do what I tell them to.”

“Actually,” John corrects him reluctantly, “they do exactly what you tell them to – you just have to know the right commands.”

“Humans are easier”, Jedikiah says, sitting back down next to John. “Much easier.”

John doesn’t really know what to say to this. Humans have never been easy for him – not even once he’d learned to read their minds. They’re so complex, with their past and present constantly intertwining and recreating their personality and characteristics. There’s never an end to the changes a person can undergo.

A computer though, is different. A computer has a limited set of things it can do, a limited range of reactions it’s capable of. A computer could never surprise, never confuse, never frighten him.

It will never refuse to do his bidding – not out of spite, or because it’s lazy, or because it doesn’t _care_. As long as he knows the commands, the language, he’s fine.

“You’re suspiciously quiet,” Jedikiah notes. “Did I tire you out with my alarming lack of computer skills?”

John looks at him for a few seconds, hesitates for a few more. “No. I … to be honest, I’m glad.”

Jedikiah raises an eyebrow at him. “Glad of me being incompetent?”

John manages a weak smile. “Glad I could be of service. I know it’s not … ideal that I had to take a break from the program.”

“It’s _not ideal_ that we were attacked by a crazy person,” Jedikiah corrects him, gentle as always. “The rest is not your fault, and therefore, of no consequence. You’ll continue the program once your leg is fully healed. In the meantime, we’re on vacation together.”

“But you don’t … you never … I shouldn’t –“

“True, true,” Jedikiah interrupts his stammering, “I haven’t taken a vacation in a while, and headquarters will probably crash and burn without me to have an eye on things, but that _doesn’t matter_. We deserve a bit of peace and quiet, John – you much more than me. So relax, please, and stop worrying.”

“But I’m useless like this,” John mutters.

Jedikiah purses his lips. “You’re bored.”

“No, no – I could never be bored when … when we’re –“

“You’re bored, with so much time on your hands to do with as you please. And I understand that the current weather isn’t ideal for gardening, much less with a leg wound to consider. So tomorrow, I will take you to an electronics store, and we’ll shop.”

John just stares at him. “Shop for what?”

“How am I supposed to know – you’re the computer genius, you’ll tell me which parts to buy.”

John just stares some more. “Just because I could handle the new system, doesn’t mean I can just built a whole computer from scratch.”

Jedikiah pats his hand. “Then you’ll have to learn. Trust me, it’ll be good for you – take your mind off things.”

John nods, silently, and looks down at his bare feet. They haven’t talked about what happened, not really. All John knows is that Jedikiah killed the man who attacked them. All he knows is that Jedikiah was there when he woke up in Medical, and that he kissed him, in front of everyone.

The days since haven’t felt real, without the training, without the Annex Program … almost every minute spent with Jedikiah in a manner that could be described as _domestic_. It’s surreal.

He’s not in pain, feels neither too hot nor too cold, his body isn’t any kind of distraction. John hasn’t felt this normal in so long that he does no longer know how to … be – normal.

He wants to tell Jedikiah that he’s sorry he had to kill for him, but he knows Jedikiah doesn’t want to hear it. As bad as he is with human interaction, John still knows _that_. He knows Jedikiah would tell him not to worry about it, that it wasn’t his fault, that there’s nothing he could have done differently to prevent what has happened.

All that knowledge doesn’t change that John doesn’t know what to do with the lengths Jedikiah went to for him.

“… John, are you okay?”

John realizes several things in quick succession: firstly, that he’s been quiet for far too long, secondly, that his jeans are more holes than cloth and will probably not last the week, and thirdly, that Jedikiah is looking at him with the kind of concern that usually demands an explanation from him.

“I’m fine,” he tries nevertheless. “Just daydreaming.”

“About what?” Jedikiah persists. “The unending struggle for our purpose in this life? You look like you’ll be sick.”

John makes a fist with his right, draws the fingers in tight until he can feel the nails digging into his skin. “I won’t.”

“Won’t what? Be sick or talk to me? Or both?”

John never knows how to answer these questions, never knows how to respond to the worried kindness in Jedikiah’s voice. He wants to, though. He wants to talk about that night, about what happened. He wants to know if Jedikiah is okay.

“Will you promise me something?” he asks, his voice scratchy from the effort it cost him just to open his mouth and speak. When he looks up, Jedikiah watches him from under knitted brows, mouth slightly pursed.

“Promise you what, exactly? I’m not one for blank cheques, I like to know what I’m consenting to.”

“Will you promise me that if I tell you what’s wrong, you won’t try to … to make me feel better, please? I … I need you to … to be honest with me.”

Jedikiah’s brows draw closer together. “I usually am, John.”

John presses his eyes shut. “Just promise me, please.”

In the silence that follows, his own heartbeat seems unnaturally loud, and John keeps his eyes firmly closed. He almost flinches when he feels Jedikiah take his hand, squeeze it gently. “I promise.”

Strangely, the words don’t lessen the weight on John’s chest. Instead, they add to it, make him feel as if he’s drowning – breathing and breathing and breathing without ever getting enough air into his lungs.

He’s waited so long to say the words that they have ingrained themselves into his bones, are itching beneath his skin. They’ll burn him from the inside if he tries to hold them back for much longer … but still he hesitates. Because what if Jedikiah isn’t okay? What will he do then?

John takes a deep breath. “You … you killed that man.”

Silence returns, but not for long.

“Yes, I did,” Jedikiah says, sounding careful and unsure of where John is going with this. Sounding as if he doesn’t know why he even mentioned it.

John opens his eyes, looks, _really_ looks at him. “Doesn’t … doesn’t it bother you?”

Understanding glides over Jedikiah’s features, there’s a sudden light in his eyes, a gentle smile hiding in the corners of his mouth. “You’re worried about me.”

“Yes,” John admits. “I am.”

Jedikiah’s still holding his hand, and he lets his thumb brush across John’s knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, again and again.

“What you need to understand about me, John,” he starts to explain, calm and with no hint of agitation in his demeanour, “is that I am not the kind of man who cares easily. I don’t give to any kind of charity, crying children don’t move me, they tend to annoy me. I do not like animals, not even when they’re small and _fluffy_. I don’t tend to emphasize. In my line of work, I consider this to be an advantage. Caring very often makes you weak, and I prefer not to be. Do you … do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

John nods, slowly, and with a hint of hesitation in his eyes. “You mean you’re okay. It doesn’t bother you.”

The smile hiding in the corners of Jedikiah’s mouth comes out, stretches his lips. “You’re right, it doesn’t. The man I killed … not only had he hurt you and would probably not have hesitated to do even worse to you, he was … he wasn’t a man anymore. I watched him fight, I saw the expression in his eyes. It was a question of killing or be killed, and in that moment, I was rather comfortable with the former. I still am.”

John has to look away from his smiling face, can’t understand how even now, in this context, it makes him feel safe, wanted … how it arouses him. “Still, if it hadn’t been for me …”

“Yes, if I hadn’t taken you out and to the park that evening, nothing would have happened. But that’s a line of thought that’s, frankly, quite idiotic, John. I am not traumatized by what happened. I did what needed to be done, and I’m fine with that. I always will be. And maybe that’s cold or even inhumane of me, but that’s who I am. I will never stand by and just watch, I will always step in, especially for you. Because as rarely as it happens, I _do_ care about you.”

John feels his throat close up, the pressure of tears behind his eyes. “You promised not to try and make me feel better.”

Jedikiah kisses him, softly, a quick pressure of lips on lips, with the lingering promise of more. “I didn’t _try_ anything, John,” he mumbles, puts his arms around John’s unresisting form and draws him closer. “I was honest with you, just like you asked me to.”

The intend behind the words is unmistakable, and John can’t suppress the answering shiver down his spine. He doesn’t resist, comes willingly.

Getting onto Jedikiah’s lap still feels incredible – the sheer warmth of another man’s body underneath his own, the intoxicating closeness and strength never fail to arouse him.

“And now that I was honest with you,” Jedikiah whispers, his hands gliding onto John’s hips, “I’d like to make you feel better – on purpose and with intent, this time. Will you let me?”

There’s a lot John could say to this, but as usual, the words brimming beneath the surface refuse to just come out and work for him like they do for Jedikiah.

“Yeah,” is all John manages, though it’s hardly a sufficient translation of the multitude of feelings trapped inside his ribcage.

“Good,” Jedikiah murmurs, lets his lips graze across the bare skin of John’s neck, his hands tighten on his hips. “Because if there’s one thing I’ve really come to enjoy …”, his hands cup John’s ass, squeeze tightly until John can no longer suppress a whimper, “it’s making you feel better.”


End file.
